N00152:35
The wicked mans portion. Or A sermon (preached at the lecture in Boston in…
The wicked mans portion. Or A sermon (preached at the lecture in Boston in New-England the 18th day of the 1 month 1674. when two men were executed, who had murdered their master.) Wherein is showed that excess in wickedness doth bring untimely death. / By Increase Mather, teacher of a Church of Christ. ; [Six lines of quotations]The wicked mans portion. Or A sermon (preached at the lecture in Boston in New-England the 18th day of the 1 moneth 1674. when two men were executed, who had murthered their master.) Wherein is shewed that excesse in wickedness doth bring untimely death. / By Increase Mather, teacher of a Church of Christ. ; [Six lines of quotations]
Boston: printed by John Foster, 1675
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Sometimes this is brought to pass by the Lords immediate hand. If men be generally wicked overmuch, the Lord ⟨p. 5⟩sends Public destroying Judgments, whereby thousands die before their Time. so on the old world, so on Sodom and Gomorrah; in the morning they were well and likely to have lived many a fair day, but dead and damned before night. Those sore Judgments of Famine, P•ague, and Sword, come and sweep away multitudes before their time, when a people are become wicked overmuch. And Particular Judgments do hence come upon Particular persons, whereby they were cut of before their Time. There was that wicked Er and his wicked brother Onan, did commit abominable uncleanness in the sight of God, and therefore the Lord slew them, that they dyed before their Time. so Nadab and Abi•u were wicked overmuch, and there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them, and they dyed before the Lord. Corah and his complices wickedness was amongst them and in their […], and as the Psalmist (alleging to that very Judgment) speaketh Death •eised upon them and they went down quick into hell. Psal. 55.15. Ananias and Sapphira were wicked overmuch when they committed Sacrilege, and also sinned and lied in a Church Assembly where there is a special Presence of the Spirit of God, and they became guilty of lying to the Holy Ghost, wherefore first the one of them fell down and gave up the Ghost, and then the other, and thence were both cast into one grave and this before their Time. The Scripture is full of awful instances to this Purpose. Again sometimes Gods Vicegerents are improved as executioners of his wrath and justice upon such sinners. The Magistrate beareth not the sword in vain, but is the Minister of God a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil. Hence David speaketh saying, I will early destroy all the wicked of the Land, that I may cut of the wicked doers from the city of the Lord. Psal. 110.8. I will early destroy them, in the original it is, in the morning I will destroy them, because in those Times Malefactors were executed in the morning; and that's his meaning, that He would see execution done upon Capital Offenders. Thus S••ls cursed Posterity was cut off by the hand of Justice, ⟨p. 6⟩